


let's eat our love

by llien



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Universe, Communication Failure, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Kingdom Hearts III
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 17:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19431088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llien/pseuds/llien
Summary: Prompt #6:We can't keep this up forever.There was tendrils of darkness in Ven now —regretandshameanddisappointmentandmisery— but the light was there, and there was kindness. Forgiveness. Understanding, even when Ven sometimes had to fight Vanitas every inch of the way.





	let's eat our love

**Author's Note:**

> For Miyo, who requested vanven. They fought me every bit of the way and I still don't know who won.
> 
> Playing with the idea of learned helplessness on Vanitas' behalf.

Vanitas could hear Ven's heartbeat.

He wanted to crawl inside, find the pretty shimmering fractals and crush them with his bare hands, feel the slivers engorge themselves on his blood, to stain and tarnish them with his name.

What he wanted more, though, was to keep his ear against Ven's chest, to close his eyes and feel _whole,_ feel _correct._ To ignore the wrong, the dissonance, the way it felt like his very being was tethered together by frayed wires, forced to keep together but desperate to fall apart.

He curled his arms possessively around Ven's middle, and wanted to squeeze, to break him so that he couldn't ever leave. He wanted Ven to squeeze back, wanted to feel himself pulled _together,_ put together by what he should've been.

He sighed, tilting his head further up. Ven's shirt pulled at his cheek, locks of Vanitas' hair catching under the straps that proudly bore their signature emblem, which dug into Vanitas' shoulder bone unrepentant, screaming _you don't belong here._

Vanitas didn't care what it whispered into his ear, or whatever else anyone said. All that mattered was Ven's hands in his hair, where they belonged, Ven's heartbeat filling in the empty spaces of his own that beat too erratically, forever breaking apart and gluing itself together, a shattered mirror with a distorted reflection.

There was tendrils of darkness in Ven now — _regret_ and _shame_ and _disappointment_ and _misery —_ but the light was there, and there was kindness. Forgiveness. Understanding, even when Ven sometimes had to fight Vanitas every inch of the way.

Vanitas couldn't explain it himself, how sometimes he hated Ven. Wanted to plunge his hands into his chest and meet his eyes and scream his loathing until Ven was defined by it. Wanted to go back, to when he didn't exist. Wanted to beg, so that it didn't _hurt_ anymore, emotions breaking off of him like splintered glass.

But then he curled up against Ven and heard his beating heart and something unfurled, and it was like a sigh.

"You know," Ven said, breath disturbing Vanitas' hair. They sat in the cool shadow of a tree by a lake, where no one would disturb them with judgement, "we can't keep this up forever."

Vanitas stiffened, heart hammering at the eventuality, the finality. The promise, in those words, the only kind Vanitas had ever had fulfilled. Still, he kept his head pressed against Ven's chest, unseeing eyes tracing bark patterns on a distant tree. "I don't care," he said, because explanation was rarely needed between them.

He knew Ven meant their unsteady attachment, the way Vanitas could spend hours marveling at Ven's hand interlaced with his. Knew Ven meant the worried eyes that chased them, how Vanitas could only show up when no one was around.

"We shouldn't," Ven murmured, and Vanitas felt warm lips on the crown of his head. He squeezed his eyes closed. "I'm just a band-aid."

Vanitas pulled back to search Ven's eyes.

There was no bleeding heart that he loathed, no kindness, no sympathy. Just infuriating understanding, and the stalwart refusal to bend. The moment Vanitas stopped touching him was when pain crept back in, flooding him like rainwater on sun-baked lands, not a relief but an emptiness becoming whole.

It didn't show though, not even in a finger twitch. This was more familiar to him than the temporary refuge he found in Ven's soul. 

"What?" Vanitas sneered, and Ven's brows twitched down together, anticipating what was coming. They understood each other too well. "That heart of yours can't fit mine anymore. I'm just a broken unneeded piece. There's no _fixing_ me."

It wasn't self-hate, though that had its place, too. It was honesty, the truth Ven so often fled from, running from the inevitable torrent.

"Not if we don't even try!" Ven hissed, eyes flashing with familiar ire. He shook his head, soft bright blond hair dancing with dappled sunlight. "I don't see why I could be fixed and you couldn't!"

Vanitas scoffed, turning aside to stare at the placid lake. Cicadas sang, the prelude to summer's warmth, and their cries rang in his ears like the dull striking of metal, reverberating. He felt, inexplicably, as if something was seizing him, consuming him from the inside. 

"Don't make that face," Ven said, and Vanitas wondered what expression he wore, to make Ven go soft that way. "I just. I don't want to see you in pain anymore."

"It doesn't matter," Vanitas replied stiffly, and a dragonfly skimmed the surface of the pond, iridescent body shimmering with beauty, with exaltation. This beautiful lake filled with stars was where Ven belonged, was where Vanitas ran to drown in lukewarm oblivion. "I'm not like you."

It was painfully obvious to Vanitas. What had been taken was all that was worth salvaging; he knew full well the taste of fate's hand.

There was no saving him. 

"I _accepted_ it," Vanitas hissed, and he swung burning eyes towards Ven's. "I know what I am, don't _pity_ me."

"It's not pity!" Ven glared, and his hands curled around Vanitas' shoulder, touch burning. "You stupid idiot! How can you take me not wanting to see you in pain and call it pity? Why can't you see that I just— I don't want this for you!"

Vanitas stared back.

Birds erupted into flight, startling the cicadas and the dragonfly skimming the pond. Silence fell then, and distantly Vanitas felt the roar of wind, saw leaves fall as trees shook, but he couldn't hear the genesis of it. 

"The look on your face," Ven murmured, dropping his head in the space between them, blond hair brushing Vanitas' skin, the softest thing he's ever felt. "Don't you know how it hurts?"

He wanted to touch Ven suddenly. Feel the red in his cheeks, the quick intake of breath. Listen to his heartbeat, or interlace their fingers and linger in what pain was not. But he stayed stock still, watching what felt like something break.

Vanitas was the only one that broke Ven like this — his patience, his temper, his kindness, his strength. Vanitas didn't know what it meant, but he figured the reverse was true. With Ven, Vanitas felt wildly out of control, inundated with emotions and actions he couldn't reason or understand or even begin to wrestle back to himself. He felt defined by Ven, just like how the boy kneeling before him was defined by Vanitas.

"I don't," Vanitas said, because that was truth. He didn't understand why Vanitas hurt Ven, when he did nothing but exist as he was.

Ven's head jerked up, pain flashing there, but wry irony chased it. 

"It's not personal, huh," Ven murmured, and he pull back, sat so that his knees were to his chest, and the distance between them felt much more tangible. "Of course you don't understand. Your heart's too broken to."

Vanitas scowled and shot forward, hands curling around Ven's throat, pendulum swinging heavy and fast towards the further side of their chemistry. He squeezed, relishing in the glare and choked gasp as Ven's hands lashed out to grab at Vanitas' wrists. "I can do what I want!" Vanitas snapped, shoving until Ven's head collided with the bark.

Ven wretched Vanitas' hands off, though Vanitas hadn't been really putting all his strength into it. "This is what I mean!" Ven seethed. "You can't control yourself like you should! I'm not saying you _can't_ feel this, I'm saying you don't! It's _different!"_

Vanitas blinked, and he was breathing heavy, didn't even realize when he'd started heaving as if he'd been suffocated himself. Ven was glaring, eyes glinting in noonday sun. His grip shifted, became gentle, and then he was pulling Vanitas back down, cradling him.

"Different isn't bad," Ven murmured, and Vanitas closed his eyes, pressed his face into Ven's shirt so he couldn't see the bleed of light, and Ven rested his cheek on top Vanitas' hair. "I'm not saying I want to fix you. I just." He sighed, and it felt heavy, and filled with things he couldn't say.

He didn't need to. Vanitas understood, as he listened to the even steady beat under his ear again. Ven's hand soothed down his back, and Vanitas closed his eyes, the fight bleeding out of him with that touch.

He didn't know if it was the physical reaction of the pain ceasing or if Ven had convinced him, but Vanitas found himself wondering if trying again would be so bad. Maybe, this time, things would go right. 

Maybe he could be free.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter | _oathbreaker
> 
> I love the idea that they can never perfectly match up, because Ven is whole and Vanitas is not, but that the desire is there, and that they might try for each other, in their own imperfect stumbling way.


End file.
